Summer with Monika

Blu-Ray

Film Info

Inspired by the earthy eroticism of Harriet Andersson, in the first of her many roles for him, Ingmar Bergman had a major international breakthrough with this sensual and ultimately ravaging tale of young love. A girl (Andersson) and boy (Lars Ekborg) from working-class families in Stockholm run away from home to spend a secluded, romantic summer at the beach, far from parents and responsibilities. Inevitably, it is not long before the pair are forced to return to reality. The version initially released in the U.S. was reedited by its distributor into something more salacious, but the original Summer with Monika (Sommaren med Monika), presented here, is a work of stunning maturity and one of Bergman’s most important films.

Disc Features

New digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition

Introduction by director Ingmar Bergman

New interview with actress Harriet Andersson, conducted by film scholar Peter Cowie

New interview with film scholar Eric Schaefer about Kroger Babb and his distribution of Monika, the Story of a Bad Girl! as an exploitation film

Images from the Playground, a half-hour documentary by Stig Björkman featuring behind-the-scenes footage shot by Bergman, archival audio interviews with Bergman, and new interviews with actresses Bibi Andersson and Harriet Andersson

Trailer

New English subtitle translation

PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film scholar Laura Hubner, a 1958 review by filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, and a publicity piece from 1953 in which Bergman interviews himself

Video

Video

Interviews

This self-interview by Ingmar Bergman first appeared in Filmnyheter, a publicity magazine issued by the Swedish production company Svensk Filmindustri, to coincide with the opening of Summer . . .
Read more »